Report: NearlyQuarter Of Net Traffic Is Illegal Downloads

Almost aquarter of Internet traffic worldwide (23.8%) involved the distribution ofinfringing content, and that isn't even counting pornography. That's the badnews.

Over 17% ofU.S. Internet traffic is estimated to be infringing, with BitTorrentresponsible for more than half that total.

That isaccording to a just-released studyfrom Envisionaland commissioned by NBCU, which has been a leading voice against online piracyof intellectual property, including TV and film content.

The study wasreleased in advance of a Panel session Monday at the Innovation Technology andInnovation Foundation (ITIF) in Washington.

Pornography wasnot included not because there is not a large market in illegally distributedporn online, but because its infringing status was "difficult todiscern."

The study foundthat BitTorrent traffic, that new NBCU parent Comcast got smacked down by theFCC for blocking, accounted for 17.9% of all Internet traffic worldwide, andthat almost two-thirds of that (63.7%) was illegally distributed contentincluding films, TV episodes, music, computer games and software.

The studyconcluded that video streaming is the fastest growing area of the 'net andaccounts for more than a quarter of all traffic. Almost 95% of that is copyrightedcontent streamed legitimately, but that still left 5.3% illegally distributed,or 1.4% of all Internet traffic.